NEW car sales in Kerry are down in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year according to the latest statistics from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).

Last month there were 408 new registrations in the county compared to 511 in February 2016, a 20% drop.

However, taking into account January figure, sales are down less than 6% on Jan/Feb last year.

There have been 1,332 new cars sold this year so far compared to 1,415 in the first two months of 2016.

Continued below…

.

The stats have been repeated nationally with new car registrations were down -21% (17,128) compared to the same month in 2016 (21,573).

With the total new car registrations for 2017 down -8% (56,110) on the same period last year (61,295).

Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) have also seen a decrease in February -28% (2,504) when compared to February 2016 (3,457) and are currently down -11% (8,869) year to date.

While Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) registrations were up +5% for the month of February (271) but remain down -2% (727) on that of the previous year (745).

Commenting on the figures Alan Nolan SIMI Director General said “We have been anticipating lower numbers in February compared to 2016, with Brexit continuing to impact on used vehicle imports, with fewer working days this year and with less hire-drive cars because of a later Easter but these numbers are somewhat poorer than we had hoped.”